Memory Man, by David Baldacci →
Amos Decker, the memory man, 22-year-old and NFL rookie, was struck on the field that he died twice, ending his football career. The injury-induced hypothermia and synesthesia, and he becomes a different person for the rest of his life and will forget nothing. After some help at a particular rehabilitation institute for those like him, he becomes a cop and a detective.
Years later, his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law are brutally murdered in his home. He can’t continue as a cop and becomes a private investigator. He has hit bottom, is grossly overweight, and, in his way, grief-stricken.
Sebastian Leopold walks into the police station and confesses to the killing of his family. While he is in jail, a mass shooting occurs at a local high school. Decker, I pulled back to working with his old partner and the police department to solve the killings; a surprising link that connects the school killings with those of his family opens up the plot with twists and turns to leave questions that are only answered at the very end.
A well-done story, the first in a series for the Amos Decker character.
See More about David Baldacci in the Favorite Authors Section
Innocence by Dean Koontz →
When Addison Goodheart is born the midwife takes one glance at the baby and attempts to smother him. His mother raises him in the woods and she is the only human he knows until age 8 when his mother forces him to leave and go into the woods on his own. He finds his way to a highway and hides in the back of a truck and eventually makes it to what probably is New York City. Every one he meets thinks he is hideous and they try to kill him.
He finds a man in the city who is like him, hideous, and he grows up living with this man in a secret place below the city only coming out at night. After 18 years pass the man he has lived with, and called his father, is murdered by two street people.
Addison wanders the nights for years and eventually meets 19 year old Gwyneth who seems to understand him but she has a phobia where she doesn’t want to be touched.
Gwyneth’s also lives alone in the city and is being hunted by Ryan Telford who is a sexual pervert and wants to kill her. She enlists Addison to help her.
Koontz’s allegory of good and evil suggests that evil is beyond redemption through all humankind. The conclusion is a surprise. The book was a surprise and different than what we have become accustomed to. with Dean Koontz.
Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell →
“Talking to Strangers is a classic Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news.” “Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know.”
He uses examples for his conclusions from the TV show Friends, the Amanda Knox and Bernie Madoff cases, to support his conclusions. He starts right out in the introduction and takes us step by step through the story of Sandra Bland, the African American woman who in July 2015 was stopped by a traffic cop in a small Texas town. She was on her way to a new job and a police car came up behind her. Doing what almost all of us would have done, she moved aside to let the car pass and that is when the trouble started. In spite of a recording that was made Gladwell’s approach “is an attempt to understand what really happened”
One puzzle looked at early in the book is: “Why can’t we tell when the stranger in front of us is lying to our face?” To understand this point he shows how Castro’s Cuba had a spy network that totally fooled US intelligence.
The final point made in the book said: “Because we do not know how to talk to strangers, what do we do when things go awry with strangers? We blame the stranger.
My own conclusion is that I didn’t think the book went very deep into it subject and it seemed like we were expected to just be glad someone asked the questions? I blame Gladwell for that by the way.
Missing You, by Harlan Coben →
The novel starts out: “Kat Donovan spun off her father’s old stool, readying to leave O’Malley’s Pub, when Stacy said, “You’re not going to like what I did.”
Kat Donovan is a cop, just like her dad was. Feeling alone she looks through a on line dating site and comes across the face of Jeff Raynes an old flame from years back. She drops him a note but he at first doesn’t seem to remember her. With a hint he comes out of his shell and warms up but then backs away saying he doesn’t want to connect again.
Before long Brandon Phelps, a college student from Connecticut, comes all the way to New York to ask for Kat’s help in finding his missing mother, Dana, but he won’t tell her why he even thinks she can help.
This all overlaps Kat’s interest in Monte Leburne who years ago was convicted of killing her dad who at the time was a NYPD detective.
These three very different stories Harlan Cobern weaves together with twists and unexpected turns into a plot that leaves you not seeing what is coming until the very end. No surprise for this author.
See more about Harlan Cobern at https://connectedeventsmatter.com/literary-favorites/2019/6/20/harlan-coben
The next person you meet in heaven, by Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom’s “the next person you meet in heaven” is a sequel to his number one bestseller, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. In the original book he introduced Eddie, a war veteran and amusement park mechanic, who died saving the life of a young girl named Annie. Eddie went on to Heaven and met 5 people and learned that every life matters.
In this book Annie is grown up and is marrying Paulo, her childhood boyfriend. But when her wedding is over, on the following day, she and Paulo go up in a hot air balloon ride and have a terrible accident. Annie finds herself on her own heavenly journey where she meets Eddie, one of the five people she will meet. She also sees episodes from her own left that left her depressed and sad, but she was able to see the lessons she learned from them.
What is surprising about this book is that it is so much like the first book that you start out not expecting to like it. It is just a simple book and a simple story, but Mitch Albom has now sold over 36 million books and is approach works.
Thinner by Stephen King
“Thinner, the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Haleck and his wife, Heidi, come out of the court house. Just that one word, sent on the wafting, cloying sweetness of his breath. “Thinner.” And before Halleck can jerk away, the old Gypsy reaches out and caresses his cheek with one twisted finger. His lips spread open like a wound, showing a few tombstone stumps poking out of his gums. They are black and green. His tongue squirms between them and then slides out to slick his grinning, bitter lips. Thinner.”
Steven King originally wrote this book under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. One of six books he wrote using that name.
Billy Halleck is a fat, obese, lawyer who has to defend himself for killing a women who jaywalked by running into her. He was driving with his wife and was distracted (go ahead, read it and find out why) and didn’t see the women in time. She was a Gypsy, daughter of Taduz Lemke, the head of the Gypsy clan in town at that time.
Billy knew the judge and he case is dismissed at a preliminary stage thanks to the judge. Taduz Lemke meets Billy on the courthouse steps and strokes Billy's cheek and whispers one word to him: "Thinner".
Billy begins to lose weight at a steadily accelerating pace, and he soon realizes that Lemke has cursed him as well as the judge who started to grow scales on his skin. Another helper in getting the case dismissed came from the police chief who soft-pedaled the charges and he was also cursed leading to a horrifying case of acne.
Just another good story that holds you interest from a master storyteller
See more about Stephen King a Literary Influence and the books that have been reviewed of his on this site. https://connectedeventsmatter.com/literary-favorites/2018/6/21/stephen-king
One Good Deed by David Baldacci
“It was a good day to be free of prison. The mechanical whoosh and greasy smell of the opening bus doors greeted Aloysius Archer, as he breathed free air for the first time in a while.” The year was 1949 and he was just released from Carderock Prison and he is on his way to Poca City on parole.
The small town is complicated and dangerous even for a man just out of prison and who served in the war. His first night in town at a local bar he is hired to collect a debt seemingly a simple job. The $5,000 debt is owed to Hank Pittleman, a man that seems to own the town. Lucas Tuttle owes the money has no intention of paying up which could be a real problem for Archer who got an advance on his fee before starting the job.
Archer explains his new job to his parole officer, Miss Crabtee, who just seems to take it in stride but also who is tough and will be watching him closely.
When a murder takes place right under Archer's nose the police, who know he is an ex-convict, suspect him and he has no choice but to track down the killer.
Baldacci is a master storyteller who weaves plots that twist and turn, and you don’t see what is coming until it happens. Another great book.
See more about David Baldacci and his other book reviews
that are on this site at:
https://connectedeventsmatter.com/literary-favorites/2019/3/29/david-baldacci
Blowout by Rachel Maddow
It is a shame that many who would benefit and see the situation the same way will likely just see the authors name and go no farther. Rachel Maddow is likely considered on the wrong side by many who are polarized with the political climate today but this book isn’t about being Republican or Democrat it is about how corrupting Big Oil has been to the world.
The Washington Post, in their praise for the book, said that her viewpoint is different only because it has real facts behind it. At least for the sake of this book wouldn’t it have been better to have left the implication of a “side to her point of view” and just said the facts are awful and we ought to be very alarmed at what big oil has done to the world.
“At its heart, this book is a tale of two countries, the United States and Russia, and how, as Maddow sees it—individually and together—they have been warped by a rapacious fossil fuel industry. . . . Fulminating comes easy to Rachel Maddow. What sets her apart from other serial fulminators is that she does it with facts—and sardonic wit.”—The Washington Post
The book is not an easy read. It is a very detailed look at her subject. If you finish it you should get a “extra credit” for what you will learn.
Blue Moon, Jack Reacher by Lee Child
“The city looked small on a map of America. It was just a tiny polite dot, ear a red threadlike road that ran across an otherwise empty half inch of paper. But up close and on the ground, it had a half a million people.” Lee Child starts Blue Moon, his most current Jack Reacher novel (as of November 2019) and we look forward to how Jack Reacher will fit into this tiny dot on the map.
Jack Reacher starts out sitting on a bus, no surprise, and sees an old man sleeping on a bus with a fat envelope sticking out of his pocket. Reacher knows it is what you get from a bank with money and notices a man watching the envelope and the old man. To prevent a crime he follows the man and the young man following him off the bus. As expected, he saves the old man from at least being robbed but he is badly hurt by the would-be robber.
The old man, Aaron Shevick, won’t go to the hospital or the police so Reacher helps him get home and then learns from his wife that they owe money to a loan shark. The town is controlled by two gangs. The Ukrainians and the Albanians who are engaged in a fierce turf war.
A natural Jack Reacher plot but well told leaving us on the edge of our seat right through to the end.
What is amazing about this book is that it is #24 in this series and I have read every one and I am still hooked on this character and Lee Child plot and story skills.
The Guardians, by John Grisham
The Guardians, Grisham’s new legal thriller takes place in Seabrook Florida where a young lawyer, Keith Russo, is shot while working late one night. There are no clues or witnesses but the police eventually tie Quincy Miller, a young black man and former Russo client, to the murder. He spends 22 years of a life sentence with no help from anyone and then he writes a letter to the Guardian Ministries. This lawyer-minister firm is staffed by Cullen Post and a small support group. They take pride in getting innocence people out of prison and take an interest in Quincy’s case. One lawyer was already killed in this case so it will be challenging.
It doesn’t take much work to see that Quincy was framed. It turns out that a Mexican cartel is involved. Grisham has his usual well-tuned plot and some strong scenes. The book seems to be one of his better recent one.
Quotes
Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.” ...
“In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. ...
“You live your life today, ...
“Some people have more guts than brains.” ...
“If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.” ...
“I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right.”
More Thoughts on John Grisham
John Grisham writes with authority and it shows. He practiced law in Mississippi and has written 33 novels, and the closer they resonate with the law the more interesting they are.
A story of an innocent man who winds up in prison is one that Grisham would do best and this is a good story, well written.
The Racketeer, by John Grishman
African American, Virginia lawyer, Malcolm Bannister starts out this story saying: “ I am a lawyer, and I am in a federal prison camp near Frostburg, Maryland. It’s a long story. I’m forty-three years old and halfway through a ten -year sentence handed down by a weak and sanctimonious federal judge in Washington D.C.”
Both federal judge Raymond Fawcett and his secretary were recently found shot in the head in his cabin in southwest Virginia. Near the bodies was an empty open safe.
Bannister tells the feds that he can identify the killer for them in exchange for a release from jail and the means to start a new life. An agreement and plan is set up and acting on information from Bannister, the FBI arrests Quinn Rucker. Bannister is released and given a new face and identity as Max Reed Baldwin and put in the witness protection program. . After the FBI discovers that Rucker's gang knows Bannister's whereabouts and is seeking revenge, he leaves the program and goes off the radar. He then meets another man he had met in prison, Nathan Cooley who is pulled into the scheme that Bannister has put together.
Another can’t put it down story full of twists and some real insight into the penal system.
More thoughts on this book by Brent M. Jones
This book was released in October 2012. It has more of a John Grishman feel to it. His newer books sometimes don’t feel the same. His newest book, “The Guardians” will be reviewed very soon and it seems to be a bit of the old and newer books in feel.
A lot of folks have come to this blog for the reviews and I want to thank you for that. I have recently published a book and commented on it on this site before and will be publishing a second one in December. I am putting together a mailing list to just offer some updates no more than twice a month, if that. Some of the comments there will be on the process of putting the books out. I hope you will sign up. See the Newsletter sign up tab.
Why Life Stories Change, by Brent M. Jones
We have a choice in putting together the narrative of who we are, and who we become. We can pick which of the events we connect with, what we conclude about them, and then weave and reweave them into our story. As my story changes with the retelling, I find that it changes me. I become different because of how I see the story.
In Why Life Stories Change, author Brent M. Jones offers some thoughtful reflections on how the events of our lives can be reshaped over time, resulting in positive changes in our self-identity.
If our Life Story creates our identity, then we must include all the lives we have experienced, besides those that we have personally lived. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, but even so all we have is “right now” and it is our own life that seems to be the clearest to us.
Books and authors influence us. Art, music, poetry, literature, service, our heritage and even food can influence us even to the point of being part of the life story.
“The most powerful words in the English language are tell me a story” according to author Pat Conroy. There is no one whose story I am as familiar with as my own. The same is true for you. This seems so obvious, but then what surprises me a little is how I see that story differently almost every time I tell it.”
Authors Page at Amazon
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A long way gone,, Memories of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beach
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. The story starts while he is living with his father, stepmother and brother. The book starts with Ishmael Beah, his older brother Junior, and their friend Talloi traveling from their village of Mogbwemo to Mattru Jong in order to perform in a talent show. Ishmael, Junior, and their friend love rap music and sing and dance to it.
While away on their trip their village is attacked by rebels and at the age of 12, he is left on his own separated from his family. The think that their parents fled to a small village on the Sierra Leone coast and they try to try to go there. They don’t find their parents but are forced to join an army unit where is given plenty of drugs and brainwashing and trained to kill. Ishmael lives this life of a boy soldier until he is 16 when UNICEF gets him released from the army to be put in a rehabilitation program.
The process of making a young boy capable and able to be a ruthless killer is something this book will likely cause many to never forget. Also, the goodness and needs of the boy as he is rehabilitated and eventually finds a place that he can consider his family is also well done.
An important book, well done.
Quotes
“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.” ...
“When I was young, my father used to say, 'If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen.“
“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. ”
“...children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.”
“I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end...”
The Institute by Stephen King
When they kidnap 12-year-old Luke Ellis for his minor telekinetic ability they overlook the power of his very significant intellect. Luke is brilliant and that power is something the evil Institute people had not expected.
Luke wakes up in a room that looks just like his bedroom back home. The door opens onto a hallway decorated with posters of romping children with mottos like “JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE” and “I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY!” Of course, the Institute is not a paradise it destroys its victims. It also destroys the “moral compass” of those who work there too long.
Luke teaches a group of traumatized kids to understand and utilize their own abilities, and to turn those abilities against their captors. In creating human “weapons” of the minds of the kids to be used against perceived enemies, the Institute created a weapon to be used against itself. Luke’s intellect with the linked mental efforts of the children, and with significant help from a powerful 10-year-old psychic named Avery Dixon the balance of power shifts and Luke escapes making his way to DuPray, South Carolina, where he meets up with S.C., Tim Jamieson, a former policeman.
Is this really one of the scariest of King’s novels? I don’t think so. In some ways it seemed to be less gory and horrifying but it was well done with a plot that took some unexpected turns. It was what you would expect of Steven King and worth the read.
See More About Stephen King and the Books Reviewed on this Blog
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Quotes
“this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.”
“Back in the main corridor—what Luke now understood to be the residents’ wing—the little girls, Gerda and Greta, were standing and watching with wide, frightened eyes. They were holding hands and clutching dolls as identical as they were. They reminded Luke of twins in some old horror movie.”
“Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely.”
“He wanted to tell Luke that he loved him. But there were no words, and maybe no need of them. Or telepathy. Sometimes a hug was telepathy.”
